Political Science 7200: Theories of Comparative Politics

Autumn 2016

Marcus Kurtz Derby Hall 0038

Course Description

The idea behind this course is to provide an overview of some of some of the major theoretical
perspectives on the “big questions” in comparative politics scholarship. Of course, delimiting what the
big questions are is a difficult task, and no warrant is given here that the selections made for this course
are entirely unbiased. While I have tried to cover many bases, the course naturally reflects my tendency
to think of comparative politics from a historical perspective – especially in terms of the origins of many
of the institutional arrangements that form the central backdrop of most contemporary scholarship. Thus,
the course begins with an examination of accounts of the formation of first the market and then the
modern bureaucratic state. Subsequent sessions examine aspects of the linkage between state and society
– from the extractive (taxation), to the origins of alternative political regimes, to the relationship between
economic modernization and democracy and the meaning of democratic politics in a market economic
context. From there we move to a discussion of the origin of two critical species of political parties
(Christian- and Social-Democratic), and the party systems within which they operate. Next comes the
question of violence, both in terms of the creation of order out of violence and the dynamics of violence
in civil wars. And finally we end with an examination of alternative approaches to the political economy
of economic development.

Responsibilities

This class meets once a week for almost three hours, which gives us sufficient time to read and think
about the issues at hand. Vigorous classroom participation will be essential to making the course a
success, as will timely completion of the readings. This is a seminar, not a lecture, class, and as such
discussion and debate will be essential. Always bring the readings to class, as we will make frequent
reference to them.

Requirements

Every week each student will write a roughly one page “reaction” to that week’s readings. These reaction
papers should be emailed to everyone in the class no later than 5:00PM on the evening before the class
session. The point of these reactions papers is NOT TO SUMMARIZE the reading, but rather to raise a
question or discussion point for us to think about during the seminar. This is a seminar, and thus what we
cover will in part be governed by what you find perplexing. This is a great venue to make such a point.
Note also, that the comment can be about a small point, a big theoretical issue, a methodological
consideration, or the treatment of empirical evidence, inter alia. The idea is to raise a topic you think
worth considering.

In addition, once during the course, each student will write a five-page paper discussing one of the
important works we are covering. It will be due, as above, the day before the date in which it is to be
discussed in class. Who is responsible for what set of readings will be determined during the first class.
The basic point in this paper will be to examine how or whether the work in question advances our
knowledge on a particular subject (set in the context of the state of knowledge in a particular topic area).
This will in part require a “reverse engineering” of the research design that supported the work in
question, and will address such issues as: What theoretical question frames the work? What categories of
evidence are brought to bear? Were the causal variables appropriately conceptualized and measured?
Were the tests of hypotheses appropriate to the theories under examination? What alternative approaches
were not discussed? What other data would be required to make the argument more compelling? How
does the work fit into ongoing debates in the area? What do alternative approaches to evidence tell us for
the robustness of the findings? It will not be a summary or a literature review. More elaboration on this
assignment will be forthcoming later.

The principal written assignment for the class will be a substantial paper (which may be an extension of
the 5-page paper) that is: (1) a research paper that departs from where the readings for one of our topics
leaves off (i.e., tries to take the “next step”), (2) or a re-analysis of one of the topics considered in the
course with different data/methods (e.g.,, using new cases; from a distinct methodological perspective or
approach; with a re-conceptualization of key variables, etc.), or (3) a traditional research paper on the
topic of your choice (with approval). Typically, such papers are on the order of 20-30 pages, though there
is no strict upper or lower limit.

A brief presentation of your final paper will take place on the last class session (time/place TBD).

Grades will be assigned on the following basis: class participation and reaction papers (15%), five-page
paper (20%), presentation (10%), final paper (55%).

Deadlines: Reaction papers are to be distributed to the entire class by email by 5:00PM the night before
class. Five page papers must be emailed to all class members by the same (5:00PM) deadline. The final
version of the major paper is due at 12:00pm on Wednesday, December 14th, 2016.

A Warning. This is a foundation class in comparative politics. Since we have a large amount of ground
to cover, there is no way to keep the amount of reading small. As a consequence, you should understand
that this course will tend to be time consuming. Coming to class unprepared, however, is not acceptable.
All reading should be done in a timely fashion.

A Note

The syllabus for this course may be updated from time to time as we move along through the course. The
most-current (and binding) version will be found on the carmen website. I will announce any changes by
email as well.

Readings

There are eleven books that you will need for this course, as well as quite a few articles. The articles are
generally available electronically through the library. A few readings (principally selections from books
not included in the list below) are not available electronically and will be made available on the carmen
website for this course. From time to time readings may be moved from “required” to “recommended”
depending on whether we are successfully getting through all the material each week and if we are getting
behind. I’ll let you know by email if the readings in any week are to be reduced.

The books for purchase or other form of acquisition are:

1. Karl Polanyi. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1944). ISBN: 080705643X

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2. Douglass C. North. Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982).
ISBN: 039395241X

3. Avner Greif. 2006. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy (New York: Cambridge
University Press). ISBN. 0521671345.

4. Thomas Ertman. Birth of Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). ISBN:
0521484278.

5. Barrington Moore. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).
ISBN: 0807050733

6. Carles Boix. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. (New York: Cambridge University Press).

7. Margaret Levi. Of Rule and Revenue. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

8. Stathis Kalyvas. The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1996), ISBN. 0801483204.

9. Adam Przeworski. 1985. Capitalism and Social Democracy. (New York: Cambridge University
Press).

10. Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast. 2009. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual
Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. (New York: Cambridge University Press).

11. Stathis Kalyvas. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. (New York: Cambridge University
Press).

Academic Honesty

All of the work you do in this course is expected to be your own. Absolutely no cheating or plagiarism
(using someone else's words or ideas without proper citation) will be tolerated. Any cases of cheating or
plagiarism will be reported to the committee on academic misconduct and handled according to university
policy. If you have any question about the University’s Code of Student Conduct, please see the web site:
http://studentaffairs.osu.edu/pdfs/csc_7-13-06.pdf.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities that have been certified by the Office for
Disability Services will be appropriately accommodated, and should
inform the instructor as soon as possible of their needs. The Office for
Disability Services is located in 150 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Avenue;
telephone 292-3307, TDD 292-0901; http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/.

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 Schedule of Readings
August 25. Introduction

September 1. Capitalism, the Market, and Market Society.

North, Douglass C. 1982. Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982),
3-89, 143-186.

Polanyi, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
(Boston: Beacon Press), 3-134.

Greif, Avner. 2006. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy (New York: Cambridge University
Press), 1-53 (skim), 91-123.

Brenner, Robert. 1976. “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe”
Past & Present No.70 (February), 30-75.

September 8. NO CLASS. APSA.

September 15. NO CLASS. MAKE-UP DATE IN LAST WEEK FOR PRESENTATIONS.

September 22. The Birth of the Modern State in Europe.

Soifer, Hillel. 2008. “State Infrastructural Power: Approaches to Conceptualization and Measurement”
Studies in Comparative International Development. Vol. 48:3/4 (September):231-251.

Ertman, Thomas. 1997. Birth of Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1-34, 90-263.

Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, Capital, and European States (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell), 67-95.

Cohen, Youssef, Brian R. Brown, and A. F. K. Organski. 1981. “The Paradoxical Nature of State
Making: The Violent Creation of Order” American Political Science Review Vol. 75:4
(December):901-910.

Greif, Avner. 2006. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy (New York: Cambridge University
Press), 153-304.

Sharma, Vivek Swaroop. 2015. “Kinship, Property, and Authority: European Territorial Consolidation
Reconsidered” Politics & Society, Vol. 43:2 (pp. 151-180).

September 29. State Building in the Developing World.

Centeno, Miguel Angel. 1997. “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth‐Century Latin
America” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 102:6 (pp. 1565-1605).

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Herbst, Jeffry. 1990. “War and the State in Africa” International Security, Vol. 14:4 (pp. 117-139).

Rodríguez-Franco, Diana. 2016. “Internal Wars, Taxation, and State Building” American Sociological
Review, Vol. 81:1 (pp.190-213).

Kurtz, Marcus. 2009. “The Social Foundations of Institutional Order: Reconsidering War and the
‘Resource Curse’ in Third World State Building” Politics & Society, Vol. 37:4 (pp. 479-520).

Soifer, Hillel. TBD.

Saylor, Ryan. 2014. State Building in Boom Times: Commodities and Coalitions in Latin America and
Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 1-58.

Hui, Victoria Tin-Bor. 2004. “Toward a Dynamic Theory of International Politics: Insights from
Comparing Ancient China and Early Modern Europe” International Organization, Vol. 58:1 (pp.
175-205).

Robinson, Amanda Lea. 2014. “National Versus Ethnic Identification in Africa: Modernization, Colonial
Legacy, and the Origins of territorial Nationalism” World Politics, Vol. 66:4 (pp 709-746).

October 6. Taxation and Fiscal Sociology.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. “The Crisis of the Tax State,” translated from the German by W. F. Stolper
and R. A. Musgrave, and published in Alan Peacock, Wolfgang Stolper, Ralph Turvey, and Elizabeth
Henderson, eds., International Economic Papers, No. 4. London: MacMillan and Company Limited.

Margaret Levi. Of Rule and Revenue. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 1-144, 175-
84.

Einhorn, Robin. 2000. “Slavery and the Politics of Taxation in the Early United States” Studies in
American Political Development. Vol. 14 (Fall):156-183.

Ross, Michael. 2004. “Does Taxation Lead to Representation” British Journal of Political Science Vol.
34:2 (April):229-249.

Boucoyannis, Deborah. 2015. “No Taxation of Elites, No Representation: State Capacity and the Origins
of Representation” Politics & Society, Vol. 43:3 (pp. 303-332).

Robert H. Bates and Da-Hsiang Donald Lien. 1985. “A Note on Taxation, Development, and
Representative Government,” Politics & Society, Vol.14, no. 1 (pp. 53–70).

Scheve, Kenneth and David Stasavage. 2010. “The Conscription of Wealth: Mass Warfare and the
Demand for Progressive Taxation” International Organization, Vol. 64:4 (pp. 529-61).

October 13. NO CLASS. AUTUMN BREAK.

October 20. Regimes and Nations

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Moore, Barrington. 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the
Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press). Read the theory chapters at the end, as well as
at least the chapters on France and England.

Luebbert, Gregory. 1987. “Social Foundations of Political Order in Interwar Europe” World Politics 39:4
(July), pp. 449-478.

Carles Boix. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. (New York: Cambridge University Press), 1-129.

Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson. 2001. “A Theory of Political Transitions” American Economic
Review Vol. 91:4 (September), 938-63.

Recommended:

Weber, Eugen. 1976. Peasants into Frenchmen: The modernization of rural France, 1870-1914. Palo
Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

October 27. The Modernization Debates.

Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and
Political Legitimacy” American Political Science Review 53:1 (March), pp. 69-105.

Barro, Robert J. 1999. “Determinants of Democracy” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 107:S6 (pp.
S158-S183).

Przeworski, Adam and Fernando Limongi. 1997. “Modernization: Theory and Facts” World Politics Vol.
49:2 (January), 155-183.

Boix, Carles and Susan Stokes. 2003. “Endogenous Democratization” World Politics Vol. 55:4 (July).

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson, and Pierre Yared. 2009. “Reevaluating the
Modernization Hypothesis” Journal of Monetary Economics Vol. 69, 1043–1058.

Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John Stephens. 1992. Capitalist Development
and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1-154 (skim).

Richard Hamilton. 1986. “Hitler’s Electoral Support: Recent Findings and Theoretical Implications”
Canadian Journal of Sociology. Vol. 11:1 (pp. 1-34).

David Abraham. 1980. “Conflicts within German Industry and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic”
Past and Present, Vol. 88:1 (pp. 88-128).

Sheri Berman. 1997. “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic” World Politics, Vol. 49:3
(pp. 401-429).

King, Gary, Ori Rosen, Martin Tanner, and Alexander Wagner. 2008. “Ordinary Economic Voting
Behavior in the Extraordinary Election of Adolf Hitler” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 68:4 (pp.
951-996).

November 3. Markets and Democracy.

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Olson, Mancur. 1993. “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development” American Political Science Review
Vol. 87:3 (September), 567-576.

Przeworksi, Adam. Capitalism and Social Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press), 133-
169.

Lindblom, Charles. 1982. “The Market as Prison” Journal of Politics Vol. 44:2 (May), 324-336.

Przeworski, Adam and Michael Wallerstein. 1988. “Structural Dependence of the State on Capital”
American Political Science Review Vol. 82:1 (March), 11-29.

Mueller, John. 1992. “Democracy and Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery: Elections, Equality and the Minimal
Human Being,” American Journal of Political Science 983-1003 (November 1992)

Simmons, Beth A. and Zachary Elkins. 2004. “The Globalization of Liberalization: Policy Diffusion in
the International Political Economy” American Political Science Review, Vol. 98:1.

Kurtz, Marcus. 2004. “The Dilemmas of Democracy in the Open Economy: Lessons from Latin
America” World Politics Vol. 56:2 (January).

Mosley, Layna. 2000. “Room to Move: International Financial Markets and National Welfare States”
International Organization, Vol. 54:4 (pp. 737-773).

November 10. Political Parties and Party Systems.

Stathis Kalyvas. 1996. The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press), 1-113, 167-221.

Adam Przeworski. 1985. Capitalism and Social Democracy. (New York: Cambridge University Press),
1-132.

Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National
Perspectives (New York: The Free Press), pp. 1-64.

Boix, Carles. 1999. “Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced
Democracies” American Political Science Review 93:3 (September), pp. 609-624.

Cusack, Thomas, Torben Iverson, and David Soskice. 2007. “Economic Interests and the Organization of
Electoral Systems” American Political Science Review, Vol. 101:3 (August).

Shefter, Martin. 1977 “Party and Patronage: Germany, England, and Italy” Politics & Society. Vol. 7:4
(December):403-451.

November 17. Violence and Order

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Huntington, Samuel. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press), pp. 1-92.

North, Douglass, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual
Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1-
76, 110-147, 190-250.

Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1-
52, 87-245. Skim chapter on micro-comparative evidence if you have time.

November 24. NO CLASS. Thanksgiving

December 1. The Politics of Development

Gershenkron, Alexander. 1962. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, MA:

Chaudhry, Kiren. 1993. “The Myth of the Market and the Common History of the Late Developers”
Politics & Society Vol. 21:3 (September).

Mahoney, James. 2003. “Long-Run Development and the Legacy of Colonialism in Spanish America”
American Journal of Sociology Vol. 109:1 (July):50-106.

Olson, Mancur. 1982. The Rise and Decline of Nations (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), pp. 1-
117.

Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 171-233.

Acemoglu, Daron and James Robinson. 2006. “Economic Backwardness in Political Perspective”
American Political Science Review Vol. 100:1 (February), 115-131.

December 8 or 9. Make-Up class session for presentations.

FINAL PAPER DUE (by upload to carmen) at 12:00pm on Wednesday, December 14th, 2016.